Sunday, January 24, 2010

When during a cable TV interview I was asked how I felt about Stalinversus Hitler, German army versus Soviet army, I answered that althoughupon chasing the fleeing German army, the Russians killed many partisanson sight, I never felt the same animosity toward the Russians as I felttoward the Germans. After all, the Russians had lost 25 million peopleduring the war, and war is always ugly and unpredictable. "On the otherhand," I said, "Stalin had killed more people than Hitler, but he killedhis own". This was not only picked up by my interviewer, Doug Holder,who at once asked me whether the Jews and Gypsies had not been Germans.To which I answered, of course, they were Germans. This same remark wasalso picked up by a Roma lady, who posted that comment on a website notmy own. So what did I mean?

First, I was simply repeating what had been ingrained into me sincechildhood in Europe, and I had left it in my mind untouched. I believe Ialso found it written in books comparing the two dictatorships. I myselfwas struck that I had never really thought about this issue, especially since I firmly believe that if you live in a country, fought for whatyou consider your country as so many German Jews and Gypsies had, youare certainly a citizen of that country, and you should have equalrights. I have since talked with several educated Europeans and anAmerican journalist, and I have come to the following interpretation ofwhat was commonly accepted as a statement in the Europe of the past.

Stalin killed his own, because communism had unified all Russiansminorities and ethnic Russians to be one people with equal rights, onthe surface. Stalin killed those who opposed his ideas and his regime,no matter what their separate ethnic identities had been before Sovietcommunism.

Hitler's ideology by contrast was about race. He wanted to create amaster race, catering to the romantic German notion of a 'greater Germanspace'. This dream festered in the German national mind ever since herunification, through Bismarck, in 1860. Germany as a state was stillyoung in the thirties and remained extremely tribal. Germany's Jews andGypsies were not only of a different race, most were of a differentreligion. Even a family like mine, although catholic like almost all ofCologne, Germany, was looked upon as suspect, since we didn't look, norbehaved like Germans, and we were of mixed blood. We never reallythought of ourselves as typically German. In fact many of us not onlyresisted the Nazi regime by going underground during the war, but manyof us left Germany and changed passports as soon as the firstopportunity came along.

So, to my fellow Roma activists out there, let me clarify my feelings.Now, that most of the former European countries are united into oneEurope, just as my family would not have differentiated betweenmainstream population and German ethnic minorities, I now feel EuropeanRoma and Jews are of course rightfully Europeans. They should have thesame rights, government protections and respect. They should also havethe right to preserve their own culture, the way of many other Europeansub-cultures. I believe what we are witnessing now is a result ofremnants of that same primitive tribalism that scapegoats defenselessminorities in times of economic downturns. But, although life is beingmade unbearable, especially for many European Roma, now Europe's largestethnic minority, I am optimistic. I follow enough news reports to knowthat within European governments and Human Rights organizations many arefighting to repair this historical injustice. I believe this will cometo fruition in the end, for if this effort fails, so will European unityand democracy. We do have to remain vigilant and united in our effortsto fight for minority rights.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

10/01/2010 – "The trend reached its peak this week when nearly 1,000residents of Manisa's Selendi district attacked the area's Romacommunity, stoning their homes and demolishing their stores in theaftermath of a brief brawl allegedly over cigarette smoking at acoffeehouse in the area on New Year's Eve."

The morning after the night of November 9, 1938, an aunt of mine rodeher bicycle through Cologne, Germany toward her place of work. What shefound were streets littered with the shattered glass of windows ofhouses and shops of Germany's Jewish minority. It was the true beginningof the holocaust, visible to all. The other German minority, her Gypsypopulation, had no such visible signs. They were lured into death campswith promises of work and a better life. It was a period of harsheconomic times and high unemployment.

I am a survivor of World War II. I was a child then, and we wentunderground. We were never captured. But I lived through the wholeheight of inhumanity. I was recently asked in a Cable interview, did Ithink the holocaust would ever re-occur. My first answer was no, not tothe same extent of unlimited mass murder over several years. Not unlessnews of these occurrences get suppressed in the media, as they didduring the first years of the German holocaust. On the other hand, theseoccurrences have to be picked up by major mass media, they have to makeheadlines. We, who are fighting for the Rights of Roma, have to makesure that's where they appear. The Western Press has to zoom in on theserenewed persecutions of the Roma People.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Saturday, January 2, 2010

When I was a hungry child during World War II living with partisans andothers on the run from the Nazi regime, we stole from peasants who werehoarding their food. The Catholic Church called that 'Mundraub', theftfor food, and declared it not a sin. When the partisans hunted wild boarand rabbits in stretches of forests owned by German and Polisharistocrats, who were the only ones allowed to hunt in their owndomains, the former called it poaching, the partisans called it 'law ofroad'. When I moved from the poor to the wealthy side of the fence inItaly after the war, the wealthy expected their servants, drawn fromwithin the poor, to steal a certain amount. In Sicily the poor,exploited by absentee landlords, formed the Mafia and called theft evenmurder justice. In the European proletariat theft was often accompaniedby murder. Theft is as old as civilization: it is usually a function ofpoverty and hunger.

So why do so many paste that label on to the Gypsy/Roma minority, as iftheft were a Gypsy gene. Whenever I lived among Roma, I was never afraidto leave my belongings with them. The Roma I talk to, consider having tosteal or beg to survive an act of shame. Even Hitler knew that amongnomadic Gypsies there was no crime. It was only after they were forcedoff their treks into places of confinement and given only the poorestpossibilities to survive, that petty crime entered their way of life.And petty crime it is, because, unlike theft by non-Gypsies, theirs isof hunger and not accompanied by killings. So in the New Year let'spull that unjust label off the Gypsy/Roma name, make sure that those whohave shared our living space for centuries are given the same rights andopportunities. Close the gap that has separated us for so long.